Bird hills

A map from "Tičnice iz naravoverja: zanesljivi kažipoti v slovensko prazgodovino" [Bird-hills from Natural Religion: Reliable Waymarks of Slovene Prehistory] self published book by Leopold Sever in 2013. 

It is showing "gradišča" [hill-forts] (blue circles) and "tičnice" [bird-hills] (red circles) in the historical  Slovene regions in Slovenia and southern Austria...

In Slovenia, there are currently more than 200 hill-forts known as (gradišče) and more than 200 bird-hills known under various names (Tičnica, Tičn’ca, Tičistan,  Tičerca, Tičnik, Tičevo, Na tičnici, Tičjak, Tičjek, Križ na tičnici, Ptičjek, Za tičnico, etc).

According to local lore, these were the hills where people once performed religious ceremonies (???), fed birds (???) and "exposed their dead to the birds so that the birds could carry the soul of the  deceased into the sky" (???) before burials...Oh and they believed that these hills were haunted and should be avoided after dark...

Thanks to @another_barbara for alerting me to this.  The book is mentioned in this paper:

Staroverstvo - the Old Religion - the Slovene Pre-Christian Religion

In several parts of Eastern Bosnia and Hercegovina, at the end of the wheat harvest, a patch of wheat is left unharvested "for God's birds". 

In pre-Christian times, Slavs believed that souls of their dead entered birds and through birds entered heaven, Iriy. So feeding birds with grain was basically a form of feeding the ancestors, sacrificing to the ancestors...

Scandinavians did the same, although they don't seem to remember why...

I talked about this in several of my posts: Nav, Bird wedding, Julenek...

Slavs also believed that the bountiful grain harvest was direct result of the good will of the dead ancestors...

And that good will was the result of their descendants remembering them and providing them with food (grain, bread) and drink (water, milk, red wine).

So...

I talked about the importantce of feeding the dead with bread in several of my posts like "Soul breads" "Dead man loaf"... 

According to the Serbian folklore, it is important that the food served to the dead contains "a bit of everything that land gives birth to". It was believed that the dead are the source of life and that they give back manyfold what we give to them...

It is important that the food for the dead contain especially "a bit of all the grains" again because the dead will give us back manyfold of what we give them... 

This is the root of "Koljivo" the meal made from boiled grains, nuts, raisins and sugar used in the Eastern Orthodox Church for commemorations of the dead...

The origins of koliva predate Christianity. In the Ancient Greece, panspermia, a mixture of cooked seeds and nuts, was offered during the pagan festival of the Anthesteria, which was primarily concerned with placating ancestral spirits...  

So when a priest tells you that you should not bring food to the grave for your dead, because that is a pagan custom, and that instead you should make koljivo, which is Orthodox Christians custom...

Serbian ethnographer Veselin Čajkanović believed that originally the sacrifice offered to the dead included blood sacrifice as well. The meal contained not just plant food, but also one of each type of farmed animal, ritually slaughtered, drained of blood, and roasted...

Blood was given to the dead, as it was their favourite drink...I talked about blood sacrifices in many of my posts...

 And the meat was eaten by the living...

Again all of this was done because people believed that their dead are the ones who "make the crops (and especially grain) grow"...

Depiction of Diduch (grandfather), symbolic representation of the ancestral spirit which governs the lives of the living (and most importantly determines how good grain harvest will be). From Central European Slavic mythology / folklore. 

I talk about Diduch and it's symbolic representation in my post "Diduch"...

Dog saves the grain

A folk tale from Solčava, Slovenija:

"When Adam and Eve had to leave Paradise God gave them a hoe and said they're only allowed to cultivate as much soil as they can reach with a hoe without moving from the spot they're standing on. 

Tall wheat grew from hoed ground and it had grain from the bottom to the top. But first people got greedy, they wanted even more and dug further. God got angry, grabbed the wheat at the ground and drew his fingers up, removing the grain from the stem.

Almost at the top God paused, giving people a chance to ask forgiveness. But they didn't! Before God could tear all of the grain off the wheat stem a dog came. It asked the Creator to be merciful toward people and leave them enough grain to make bread.

God listened to the dog's plead and that's the reason wheat only has grain at the top and that's why dog has the right to a piece of bread too."

In this Slovenian legend, presented originally by @another_barbara, a great account well worth following, a dog saves Adam and Eve from god's wrath and stops god from removing all the seeds from grain stalks.  

Traditional wheat harvest in Slovenia started in Jul, traditionally called in local dialects "mali srpan" (little sickle), and peaked in Aug, traditionally called in local dialects "veliki srpan" (big sickle). Which means that threshing (removing seeds from stalks) takes place in Jul/Aug...

The days at end of Jul beginning of Aug, the hottest time of the year, the time of fire breathing dragons which represent destructive sun's heat, are known locally as "kresovi" (fires, torches, bonfires). 

They are also known as dog days. This is because when our mythologies were made out of animal calendar markers, Sirius, the Dog Star rose with the sun in Jul/Aug, when mating season of the old dog breeds began...

We find this embedded into myths in:

Egypt: Article about "Dog days"...

Mesopotamia: Article about "Tishtrya"...

India: Article about "The bitch of the gods"...

This is symbolically depicted here: Medieval standing stone from Ubusko, Hercegovina. Dog fighting horned snake, dragon. Dog days (end of summer beginning of autumn), is the hottest period of the year in the Northern hemisphere, the time of fire breathing dragons. After the dog days, the Northern hemisphere starts to cool...

I think that it is this overlap between the dog days and the harvest/threshing days explains the role dog plays in this Slovenia legend. What do you think?

BTW

Here is a very interesting depiction of the garden of eden story. The tree is oak. And next to Adam and Eve we see grain and a lamb. 

Is the expulsion from the garden of eden faint memory of what happened during Neolithic agricultural revolution? 

I talked about this first in my post "Christmas trees from the Garden of Eden"...

Since then I learned that this area of Upper Mesopotamia was indeed the original Garden of Eden where the transformation from hunter-gatherers to farmers took place...

I talked about this in my post "How grain came to Sumer"...

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, which are at the root of all our mythologies, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

PPN Snake calendar marker

About (one of two) earliest animal calendar markers for the grain harvest season: snake, depicted here on the pillar 22 from enclosure D, found in PPN site Göbekli Tepe, Turkey, and dated to 11th - 10th c. BC...

So where do I start? With a snake of course...

Snake is a pure solar animal. It is in our world when sun is here (day, hot half of the year) and it is in the underworld when sun is there (night, cold half of the year)...

I talked about snake as the solar symbol in many of my posts...

This is why on this 3rd - 2nd mill BC decorated standing stone we see Sun god and his favourite pet animals, snakes...

Early Bronze Age Okunev culture which flourished in the Minusinsk Basin on the middle and upper Yenisei, Siberia, Russia. More details can be found in this article...

And why on this 3rd mill BC, Bactrian seal, we see the sun god (see heat rays found on Utu/Shamash depictions emanating from his shoulders) holding snakes, symbols of sun's heat...I talked about this in my post "Nude winged hero dominating snakes"...

The fact that snakes need sun's heat to function and are only out when it's hot, made snakes ideal symbol of sun's heat...Which causes drought...

The Luwian Storm-God kills a Dragon. Or is it a Snake. Knowing that dragon (symbol of extreme sun's heat) is just an old snake (symbol of sun't heat), it really makes no difference. Analysis of the scene depicted on this image can be found in my post "Malatya relief"...

I also talk about snakes and dragons and sun's heat and drought in my post "Letnitsa treasure" about the metal plaques the famous Thracian Letnitsa treasure, dated to the first half of the 4th c. BC, which depict a lot of common motifs from Balkan (and not just Balkan) Slavic fairy tales...Like this one depicting a princess being abducted by a three headed dragon with snake heads...

This is also why 3rd mill BC Mesopotamian dragon has lion body (Jul/Aug, Leo is the hottest time of the year) and seven snake heads (one for each hot month of Mesopotamian summer)...Analysis of this seal dated to 2200 BC can be found in my post "Seven headed dragon"

BTW, the same scene depicted on this Mesopotamian seal is also depicted here: the Woman of the Apocalypse, described in Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation. I give full symbolic analysis of this text in my post "Apocalypse"...

Anyway, back to the PPN Anatolia and its obsession with snakes. I already talked about snake as an animal calendar marker in PPN Anatolia in my post "Goat and snake from Kortik Tepe" from 2022 about these two objects from the 10,000BC  Pre-Pottery Neolithic B site Körtik Tepe, Turkey... 

Interestingly, the mating season of Goats marks the start of the wet season and the mating season of Snakes marks the start of dry season in the Körtik Tepe area...

What I proposed was that these two plaques depict: 

The start of the mating season of ibex goats (Oct/Nov)

the start of the mating season of viper snakes (Apr/May) 

in Western Asia...

These two events divide the solar year in this part of the world into hot, dry season (Apr/May - Oct/Nov) and cool, wet season (Oct/Nov - Apr/May)...

Symbolically, this wet/dry division of the solar year is depicted as "Eternal struggle between goat and snake"...on this stamp seal from Tepe Giyan, Iran, dated to 5000-4000 BC...I talked about this in my post "Master of animals from Tepe Giyan"...

The wet season could have actually been depicted by this "Mythical animal" found depicted on many tablets found in Körtik Tepe. I talked about this in my post  "Mythical animal from Kortik Tepe"... 

Now, check the Enclosure D, pillar 22 again. See the snake heads triangular shape? That's the shape of viper head...

So we know that PPN people specifically depicted vipers and that these stylised depictions of snakes with "arrow heads" from Tell Qaramel are also vipers...

Also, see how vipers get entangled during their mating "dance"? 

Is this what all the "X crossed snakes" depictions, like this one from a Körtik Tepe stone vessel, mean? Viper mating season? I think so...

So...What does this have to do with grain?

The other day I came across this image: a plaquette "bearing iconographic symbolism from Göbekli Tepe"...With no explanation what this symbolism is...

But I knew straight away what I was looking at: ear of grain between two snakes (meaning during the mating of the snakes)...

Look at this: Left is the Göbekli Tepe symbol, middle is Sumerian symbol for grain and the symbol used with the meaning "grain" since neolithic in the Balkans, Levant, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, Iran...

I talked about this symbol in my post "The oldest Demeter depiction" about the oldest depiction of Demeter, the Greek Mother of Grain? Which I believe to be this symbol which is 4500-4200 years old.

And which is depicted on one the Early Cycladic "Frying Pans" found on Cycladic islands in Greece and dated to the second half of the 3rd mill BC...

I also talked about the symbol for grain in my post "Mother of grain from Mari" about this alabaster stele [my comment: depicting the Mother of Grain], which was presented in 2012 catalog of the Phoenix Ancient Art, as a cult plaque originating from the Near East and dating from the beginning of the third millennium BC...Which depicts the same vulva surrounded by grain symbol...

I then I came across this paper and in it I saw this: Tell Qaramel shaft-straightener with the depiction of two snakes between two grain symbols. 

Please note that snakes here have X shaped heads. Symbol for "when snakes mate"? I think so...

So my hunch was right. The chevrons symbol was indeed stylised grain symbol.

Ok, but what is the link between viper snakes mating season and the grain harvest season?

Well, In fertile crescent, they both start in Apr/May...

The PPN people were hunter gatherers who by pure fluke were living in the area where wild barley, emmer and einkorn wheat and rye grew in huge quantities, covering sides of hills around their settlements...You can find more info in this paper...

Wild barley

Wild emer

Wild einkorn

Wild rye

These wild grains were all annual winter grains, meaning they all sprouted in Oct/Nov after the first rains, grew over the winter and spring, and ripened during the summer after which they could be harvested...

Harvesting was done by pulling, breaking, cutting the ripe ears with stone blade sickles off the stalks. You can read about it in this paper.

Based on the experimental results, all the above techniques will cause the ears to shatter and a lot of seeds to fall on the ground...

So the authors of this paper suggest that much more efficient way of harvesting wild cereals, and the one most likely used by the PPN people was to wait for the ripe seeds to fall on ground, and then to collect them from the ground...

Both sets of authors say that the wild cereal harvest in the fertile crescent started in Apr/May.

The first to ripen was barley (starting Apr/May) and then wheat and rye (starting Jul/Aug).

So basically grain harvest started "from the time when viper snakes start mating"...

Here is one more interesting thing. In Turkish part of fertile crescent snakes come out of brumation and into our world in Mar/Apr, just before the start of grain harvest and go back to brumation and out of our world in Oct/Nov, just after the end of grain harvest...

So grain seeds were continuously collected "from the time when snakes started mating and all the while snakes were in the grain grass"...Symbolically, you could depict this like this...

This is another Tell Qaramel shaft-straightener depicting on the left two pair of snakes meeting (usual symbolic depiction of mating), while on the right we see ear of grain growing out of the snake mouth...

Remember what I said "Mythology is a result of people being very good at noticing patterns in nature and very bad at distinguishing between correlation and causation"...

Did the PPN people somehow start believing that snakes, which they came across in the wild grain fields during the harvest time, somehow influenced ripening of the wild grains? I could bet they did...

This image is from this paper and depicts grain growing out of snakes. This article also fails to put forward any explanation for this, and fails to even identify the symbol for grain...

This probably lead to some kind of deification of a snake into a snake god of sort, to whom they prayed for good harvest...And for not being bitten and killed by the "guardians of the grain"...

Something like this:

You've got something crawling on the back of your head...Nevalı Çori, south-eastern Turkey, head with snake; limestone. Şanlıurfa Müzesi. Early to Middle PPNB. Photo courtesy of Euphrat-Archiv, Berlin-Heidelberg...

BTW, remember the stacked chevrons symbol meaning grain. The chevron could just be stylised depiction of V shaped einkorn wheat spikes which is what they look like when the ears shatter and the seed spikes fall to the ground...Einkorn was the first grain to be domesticated...

Oh, and remember that the wild grain seeds which fell to the ground after Apr/May after the last rains, or as the PPN dudes would say "after viper snakes start to mate" sprouted in Oct/Nov after the first rains, or as the PPN dudes would say "after ibex goats start to mate"...

So if you were a PPN hunter gatherer who has just figured this out and is starting to plant some of the seeds that he has gathered, the best time for planting these seeds was "when ibex goats start to mate"...

Suddenly you have this...Agricultural animal calendar...

So the PPN first farmers were planting their grain and hoping that "The Goat of Rain" would bring rain and make it germinate...You can read about "The goat of rain" in these posts...

Soooo...Almost done...Remember that Mesopotamian seven headed dragon that represented 7 hot/dry months of summer (Apr/May-Oct/Nov)...

On this depiction, God with grain growing out of his head, had just cut the first of the 7 dragon heads with a sickle. That's Apr/May, the month when grain harvest starts in Fertile Crescent...

Demeter, Greek Goddess of Grain Harvest was also, inexplicably 🙂 linked with snakes. 

Plaque Campana - Initiation to Eleusinian Mysteries. 1st half of the 1st century BC. Terracotta. Campana collection purchase 1861. Louvre museum (Paris, France). 

Well, Orphic dudes knew why. According to them: 

Rhea give birth to Zeus (thunderstorm season in Greece starts in Apr/May).

Rhea then turns to Demeter (grain harvest season in Ancient Greece started in Apr/May).

Zeus and Demeter mate as snakes and make Persephone (Snake mating season starts in Apr/May).

I talked about this in my post "Why are Persephone's parents"...

So Orphic dudes knew, and now we also know why, right?

This is also why Demeter/Ceres, arrives in chariots pulled by two snakes or two dragons...And brings ripe grain and a sickle...Like on this drawing by Pietro de Angelis...

I talked about this in my post "Demeter riding panther"...

PS: If these snakes remind you of something else, where do human seeds come from?

PPS: I would really like the people working on PPN sites who follow me to let me know what they think, apart from "we will never know for sure" 🙂

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, which are at the root of all our mythologies, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...